Student topics

Arable land, water resources and biodiversity are under pressure from increased human populations and resource needs. On top of that, natural and agri-food systems are rapidly changing due to natural disturbances, with climate change likely to increase the impacts of extreme events like drought and wildfire.With climate change, negative impacts on agriculture are predicted with disruptions to food supply; many ecosystems have already been impacted by increased frequency and severity of extreme fire events; coral reefs will be threatened by …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Biology and Environmental Science

Research centre(s)

Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Centre for the Environment

Regional Australia is undergoing significant structural, economic, social, and environmental change which is impacting the viability of small businesses (Regional Australia Institute, 2018). Regional small retail businesses, estimated to contribute $21.9bn to local economies (Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, 2019) are particularly susceptible to economic shocks, have lower survival rates, more volatile revenues and are generally less resilient than larger business (Barraket, Eversole, Luke & Barth, 2019).Disruptive external events such as the acceleration of e-retailing, COVID-19 travel restrictions, …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations

Research centre(s)

Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research

In recent years, with the rise in climate change impact, urban heat has become a major issue for many cities to tackle consequently. Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change, which has directly caused a substantial increase in heat-related morbidity and mortality. This indispensably puts an extra burden on medical systems and national finance. Meanwhile, the urban heat island effect has been exaggerating the consequences caused by the increased extreme heat in metropolitan areas. …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Architecture and Built Environment

A convergence of virtual reality (VR) and digital twin technologies can provide multifaceted benefits like digital learning processes, generating a collaborative ecosystem between technological and human assets (Martínez-Gutiérrez et al., 2023). When digital twins are adopted, they can provide sustainable energy solutions, such as energy efficiency optimisation or renewable energy integration (Coelho et al., 2024).In this project we investigate the adoption of digital twins and how this can drive the sustainable energy transition in VR environments from a cognitive computing …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

School

School of Information Systems

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science

Addressing the urgent need for community resilience amid escalating climate risks, including floods, extreme heat, and bushfires, is crucial for burgeoning cities. These cities comprise intricate networks of social, ecological, physical, and technological subsystems with structural and functional interdependencies. Understanding this complexity is vital for evaluating a city's resilience to climate risks and formulating effective policies and planning strategies. By applying complexity science principles, researchers can illuminate the dynamic relationships within these networks, revealing opportunities for sustainable urban development and …

Study level

PhD

School

School of Architecture and Built Environment

Research centre(s)

Centre for the Environment

Future robotics systems are likely to benefit from having an ability to self-diagnose self-failure or the presence of anomalous situations (so that they can switch to fallback or fail-safe modes). Example situations include subtle sensor or actuator failure and cyber security or physical intruder detection.Such low signal-to-noise anomaly detection or self-diagnose problems can be understood using powerful mathematical and statistical tools which QCR has a rich history of advancing through collaboration with industry partners and publication in premium international venues.

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Wind and cyclonic actions are important in the design of new buildings in many Australian regions including in QLD. Cyclone Tracy in NT proved that older masonry building were particularly vulnerable to cyclonic actions, and the even resulted in the improvement of construction codes.However, there are many buildings that predate the introduction of modern codes. These buildings may be vulnerable to wind and cyclonic actions. This project has been designed to study the wind vulnerability of older masonry buildings and …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science
Centre for the Environment

Many critical infrastructure systems are operated using networked feedback control. These systems crucially use wireless networks to transmit sensor and actuation signals. Unfortunately, wireless technology (sensors, actuators and communications) is unreliable and increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks. This causes performance degradation, loss of stability, system failure and, at worst, leads to deaths and disasters. Therefore, mitigating the effects of attack algorithms on Cyberphysical Systems (CPSs) is of utmost importance.A distinguishing aspect, when compared to attacks on classical information systems, is that …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics